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The Crossroads That Is 2011

There are 70 games left in the 2010 season, but no one thinks they really matter much anymore. Yes, it’s nicer to win than to lose, and no one is just going to give up and roll over, but the team is playing for the future and everyone knows it. The question, though, is whether that future can begin next year?

Based on players currently in the organization, the 2011 roster looks something like this:

I don’t think anyone would look at that team and think it was a legitimate contender. There’s two guys who have never played in the majors in starting roles, three young guys still trying to find their way as regular position players, and a rotation full of question marks behind Felix. Oh, and the bullpen isn’t great either.

The team will have some money to spend, somewhere the $10 to $20 million range depending on what the budget is and who else they trade away in the next few weeks. But, there’s almost no way to turn that team into a contender by adding a couple of pieces, because the strength of the team in young talent may also be the thing that keeps them from winning next year.

There are some potential foundation pieces in place. Smoak, Saunders, and Ackley could all hold down their respective positions for years to come. Pineda could give the team another dynamic power arm that it lacks behind Felix right now. Moore could still be a useful catcher. These guys have enough talent to be real building blocks – guys you don’t want to block with veteran players. They all should come to camp next spring with a chance to win a job on Opening Day. You could bring in insurance policy types who can push them and serve as placeholders if they’re not ready, but you’re not going to bring in an established quality player that will get in the way if the kids prove that they’ve little left to learn in Triple-A.

So, what positions can the Mariners realistically try to upgrade at? C, LF, 2B, and 1B are off the table because of the kids. 3B, CF, and RF are out because you’ve got guys under long term contracts at those spots. That leaves, essentially, shortstop, designated hitter, and the rotation as potential points of upgrade this winter.

Even if the team decided to bring in two established starters to go with Felix, Fister, and Vargas, you’re still looking at four spots on the roster that you can really make significant upgrades at (the bench and bullpen don’t matter enough to count). And at two of those, you have guys already under contract for 2011 – Jack Wilson and Milton Bradley.

Bradley is unmovable, beyond just releasing him, which the team probably won’t do unless they have someone they expect to hit better as the DH. They don’t have that guy right now, and its unlikely that they’ll spend much money this winter to bring in a guy who doesn’t play defense, and is likely at the end of his career. So, the Mariners only option is, essentially, try like crazy to move Jack Wilson’s contract in the next couple of weeks, freeing up money and a position to seek an upgrade this winter.

There’s a problem with that, too, though – good shortstops aren’t exactly laying around waiting to sign low money deals to play in Seattle. The big free agent shortstops this winter will be Derek Jeter – and, honestly, I’m more likely to take the field for the Mariners on opening day next year than he is – and a bunch of guys who aren’t any better than Jack Wilson. The team could try to trade for a young shortstop, but they did that last summer, and they found that Wilson was the best guy they could get. The best case scenario for picking up a guy in trade would be a guy like Ryan Theriot, but he’s basically just the same thing that Wilson is at the plate, only with less glove.

A substantial upgrade at shortstop is essentially not realistic. The team could potentially pursue a guy like Carlos Pena to DH and dump Bradley, but does anyone think that the line-up above, with Pena added to the mix, is the makings of a winner? And would Pena even want to stop playing the field regularly at this point in his career? The answer to both of those questions is probably not.

And so, we’re left with the reality that the Mariners have reached a point where they’re not really playing for 2011, but instead, they’re playing for 2012. They’ll lose $20 million in commitments when Bradley and Wilson become free agents, the young kids will have hopefully matured or proven themselves not worthy of full-time jobs, and they’ll still have all the useful pieces that are on the team now. Realistically, that’s probably their next chance to contend – the year when Ackley, Smoak, Saunders, and Pineda could be contributors rather than kids still adjusting to the big leagues and they have the resources to go out and add some talent at positions like SS and DH.

Who knows – maybe Jack will make some moves in the next few months that surprise me and steal enough talent away to turn this team around before next year begins. I just don’t see how he could pull that off, though. Right now, I think this team realistically will need another year. They’re playing for the future, but they’re not playing for next year.

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Comments

121 Responses to “The Crossroads That Is 2011”

eponymous coward on
July 19th, 2010 5:04 pm

And Zduriencik should’ve taken all the straw and spun it into gold?

Bill Bavasi didn’t sign ANY of the players I mentioned in my post. None of them. Zero. The fact is that Zduriencik CHOSE to have Ken Griffey’s useless carcass cluttering up the roster (and any objective analysis shows Griffey hasn’t been above replacement level for years), chose to let Wak have Sweeney as his quasi-coach, chose to trade white elephants, and so on.

If you start out in a hole (and yes, Bavasi put the organization in a hole), sure you should account for the fact that you start out in a hole, and every GM screws one up now and then. But you still get evaluated on the record, and just to take an example, the Mariner plan of record in 2010 for SS was pray that A) Jack Wilson stays healthy and B) use a guy with next to no experience at SS (Hannahan) as a fallback plan. Are you going to blame Bill Bavasi for the Mariners not signing any infield depth in 2010, when they wasted money on Griffey AND Sweeney?

That’s my argument. Jack doesn’t get to escape blame for a 2010 season of 100 losses just by handwaving about Bavasi. Bad decisions (DH, infield) and bad coaching (Silva, League falling in love with his fastball) count.

You can’t say that Silva would have done this with the Mariners this year.

I’m not saying that- but it’s pretty obvious in hindsight that Silva wasn’t complete garbage. I also think in light of League thinking he needs to throw 99% fastballs (and the fact that the Mariner bullpen is overstocked with good fastball/poor command righties) that the organization might have a bit of a problem. That reflects on the GM.

Does Zduriencik deserve to be fired? No, of course not. But I think excusemaking when you have a potential 100-loss season is the wrong way to go here. Zdurencik failed to do a good job in 2010, if you figure his job was “build on progress made in 2009”. Now the key is “can he learn from the failures and what went wrong”? Bavasi never did, really, in California or Seattle.

SODOMOJO360 on
July 19th, 2010 5:17 pm

I don’t think you have to let Saunders be the LF if there’s something else better out there. He is still young enough to spend next year in AAA to learn how to hit lefties. Dump Bradley, eat the salary and sign Branyan to be the DH next year. Must find a 5th starter for Hyphen.

heychuck01 on
July 19th, 2010 5:17 pm

Everyone here realizes that the preceding article is Dave Cameron’s OPINION? Right? You are entitled to have your own (opinion).

I know, we come here because we are fans of Dave’s analysis. But, he is commenting on the future. He doesn’t KNOW anything. If you think otherwise, you could be right too!! Don’t get too depressed about things just because you read this one article… or you can if you want. It’s your opinion to decide.

Frozenropers on
July 19th, 2010 5:19 pm

I’d still really like to see if Jack Z can make a deal with DM and the Royals to see if they would part with Gordon to fill our 3b position. With them moving him to the OF and DM’s lover for “tools” it would sure be interesting to see if JZ could create a deal around Halman and Lopez. The Royal’s just seem to love to grab up Mariner players.

We could move Gordon back to 3b and promote him back to the MLB and he would be a perfect piece to grow with Smoak, Ackley, Saunders, Guti, Moore, Felix and Pineda.

diderot on
July 19th, 2010 5:26 pm

Zdurencik failed to do a good job in 2010, if you figure his job was “build on progress made in 2009?. Now the key is “can he learn from the failures and what went wrong”?

eponymous,

There’s sense in a lot of what you say, but I think you’re drawing a false conclusion. He didn’t ‘fail’…and thus, there’s nothing to ‘learn’.

The man had a plan–pitching and defense. It’s the only one he had available. He worked it, and in the off season almost everyone applauded. But everyone from this site to the most brain-dead national baseball writer had the same question–is there enough hitting?

The players have failed. Maybe bad luck, maybe something else, but the team he built this year is better than the one he inherited/built last year. They just haven’t won. I wonder if the issues you cite–no backup SS, Silva/Bradley, League throwing fewer fastballs–would have made a whit of difference.

So my thought is that Z is doing a great job, and should continue doing it. Yes, he can be second-guessed. But is there anyone in baseball you’d rather have working in his circumstances?

JMHawkins on
July 19th, 2010 6:19 pm

The man had a plan–pitching and defense. It’s the only one he had available. He worked it, and…

I beg to differ a bit. The 2010 team is struggling in part because Zduriencik did not work the pitching and defense plan. Not all the way. It was a good plan, but he didn’t follow through.

Pitching-and-defense would not have had Bradley as the everyday LF and Tui as the backup SS to an injury prone starter. Pitching-and-defense would not have had such a weak and inflexible bench and two catchers who couldn’t.

Catch that is.

The unexpected offensive collapse of Figgins and the general inability of any of the position players the team gambled on to come through (Bradley, Griffey, Sweeney, Kotchman, Jack Wilson, Moore, that surfer dude we platooned in LF for a while…) hurt too, but this team was poorly finished off. Something happened between the Cliff Lee signing and the opening day roster. I still have a really hard time reconciling that the guy who traded for Guti and Lee is also the guy that had a Griffey/Sweeney platoon at DH with a seven man pen and Tui the only backup infielder.

I’m not out for Zduriencik’s head either. Like I said earlier, on balance he’s been more plus than minus. But EC is right that 2010 has some lessons to teach. It would be a bit presumptious of me to claim I could learn them better than Zduriencik, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any lessons.

eponymous coward on
July 19th, 2010 7:09 pm

The players have failed.

Given that almost all of the roster has been turned over, that should read “the players Zduriencik chose for the 2010 have failed”.

We seem to be going around and around on this point, but you can’t blame Bill Bavasi for the existence of Mike Sweeney or Ken Griffey on this roster on Opening Day when he had nothing to do with the signing. You can’t blame Bavasi for dumping Morrow for League. You can’t blame Bavasi for trading for Wilson and Snell… etc., etc.

Maybe bad luck, maybe something else, but the team he built this year is better than the one he inherited/built last year.

Based on what? We just blew a half-year of Cliff Lee’s career, and if Dave’s right, Ichiro’s going to be pushing 40 before this team is in contention, and Felix will be making $20 million instead of what he’s making now (which makes him a discounted asset now, not so much later). Oh, and we’ve spent the last 7 YEARS rebuilding, without being in anything resembling a pennant race in September, and it’s trashing the fan base and revenue for the team, to the point where attendance is back to early 1990’s levels. It is quite possible that this team will go 10 years without being in a pennant race in September.

Are there talented players? Sure. Cleveland had some talent in the mid 00’s, too (still has some of those players). It got them about 2-3 years of being in contention, and they’re back in the toilet now.

So my thought is that Z is doing a great job, and should continue doing it. Yes, he can be second-guessed. But is there anyone in baseball you’d rather have working in his circumstances?

Honestly? I don’t know. Which is why I’m not saying fire him. I like a lot of what has been done. But no, sorry, I don’t care what kind of handwaving you do about previous management, you don’t get to claim credit for a job well done when the season tanks this badly, and you’ve been able to turn over a huge percentage of the roster during your tenure as a GM. Like it or not, this is HIS team, and if it sucks, it means he chose players who went on to suck. His job is to choose better next time.

SODOMOJO360 on
July 19th, 2010 7:34 pm

He didn’t choose Lopez who has been one of the biggest busts this year after having the year he did last year. Bradley, Kotch, Figgins, Grif, Bullpen, Catchers….all having career worst years. Can’t blame Jack for not thinking all of them would be horrible this year.

kenshabby on
July 19th, 2010 7:37 pm

I don’t believe 2012 is realistic either. Perhaps by 2015, or maybe 2077.

shadow_watch on
July 19th, 2010 8:03 pm

I believe that the M’s should seriously consider moving Ichiro for the right price. They are not going to contend anytime soon. They should be able to get a decent return on moving him, while saving significant salary and opening up a spot for a run producing OF. We cannot have multiple power positions occupied by non-RBI producing players.

If a trade option becomes available at 3B you explore it. Figgins could be a great McLemore clone if he accepted the role.

I do look for a solid number 2 arm in any potential Ichiro deal.

Double Suicide Squeeze on
July 19th, 2010 8:48 pm

I agree with the folks who want to move Ichiro now. His salary is huge and the number of years he has left in the tank are anyone’s guess. Right now he is still an All-Star level player. Right now he is good.

Right now the M’s are in rebuild mode.

How does keeping Ichiro’s salary on the books help this team rebuild? Especially when he can be traded for multiple players that can be a part of the rebuilding process.

The only thing he provides to a rebuilding team is marketing and additional revenue (which can’t be totally discounted), but at the cost of truly going forward with the rebuilding process. Long term I have to think that a winning team (and maybe a new young star?) would be more profitable than an aging Ichiro.

With the number of holes this team has, trading Ichiro seems like the best way to free up salary and get a decent return via trade.

JMHawkins on
July 19th, 2010 9:10 pm

I do believe the bulk of the problems with this team are the fault of pre-Zduriencik management. Yes, he’s turned over the roster to a large extent, but he still began with a very bare cupboard and nobody can create a real contender without a few more cheap young guys than Zduriencik inherited. He “turned over” Mike Morse, Bill Hall, Carlos Silva, Jeremy Reed, etc. He got a pretty good return for them considering, but those guys and a small handfull of millions for FA signings aren’t going to turn into the TB Rays overnight.

The biggest problem he faced was that upon taking over, the “youth” on the team consisted of Felix Hernandez, Jose Lopez, and a bunch of replacement level guys. He certainly hasn’t been perfect in rebuilding, I’ve got my complaints. But he was handed a you-know-what sandwich, without much bread. He doesn’t deserve blame for all 100 losses this year. Some of them, sure, but not all.

greentunic on
July 19th, 2010 9:11 pm

Trading Ichrio would be way too risky to consider. Not baseball wise, but Mariner-wise. JZ would get KILLED by the media, most fans (entire Japanese fanbase, and we DO have one), and the baseball community.

Ownership wouldn’t allow it anyway. Plus we wouldn’t get a ton without eating lots of his salary. The M’s moving Ichiro is something that would only happen in video games.

eponymous coward on
July 19th, 2010 11:25 pm

He didn’t choose Lopez who has been one of the biggest busts this year after having the year he did last year. Bradley, Kotch, Figgins, Grif, Bullpen, Catchers….all having career worst years. Can’t blame Jack for not thinking all of them would be horrible this year.

No general manager goes out thinking “I’m going to make a team that sucks this year and make poor decisions”. Not Bavasi, not whichever loser is running the Orioles or Royals this year, nobody.

If the attitude is “100 lossses, no big deal, at least it’s not Bill Bavasi and this is all really his fault anyway”, there’s no opportunity to learn and improve. You have to admit to mistakes before you can learn from them.

Yes, he’s turned over the roster to a large extent, but he still began with a very bare cupboard and nobody can create a real contender without a few more cheap young guys than Zduriencik inherited.

OK, so all the stuff Dave/Lookout Landing/etc. that everyone wrote was 100% wrong (and not in hindsight- if this team was hosed, it should have been obvious back then), and there was no way this team was capable of contending in 2010 or in the near future? Then why bother with Cliff Lee and Figgins? That’s $20 million in ownership’s cash being wasted on a team that can’t contend- why not mail it in Florida Marlins-style?

I don’t buy that. I think some of this is bad luck… but some of the bad luck is residue of bad design of the 2010 roster (to put a twist on how Branch Rickey put it), and there were choices that could have helped the team quite a bit. My sincere hope is the management team doesn’t gloss over this ala Bavasi did when some of HIS plans went cockeyed, but they LEARN. Being a MLB GM is a tough job, and if you don’t learn and improve, you’ll get lapped by the ones who do.

samregens on
July 20th, 2010 12:47 am

All this “trade Ichiro” talk is pretty damn irritating.

Sure, trade the only reliable high performing player on the team. The guy who manages to play excellently at a high level for the fans, year in and year out, and almost every single fucking game, even when surrounded by guys playing like garbage and amid despair of another wasted season due to mediocrity.

And for those yakking on about how high his salary is, you seem to be forgetting he is costing us the grand price of 1.5 Carlos Silvas, 1.5 Milton Bradley, 1.5 Beltres, 1.5 Sexsons, 2 Figgins, etc. How many wins has he been worth every year compared to these guys again?

For some people it seems that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and they like to complain and hate upon what we have.
Other teams’ good players are always better than the gem we have. That is until, the Chone Figgins, the Bradleys, the Sexsons, etc. actually come to the Safe and we see that they’re not so great after all.
Complain away.

And really, the Mariners would be unwatchable without Ichiro. He’s the only tried and true superstar/world class everyday player on the team.
The guy who’s busting his butt out there every single day, playing at an excellent level for the team and fans.
The Mariners without our superstar leadoff man would be a pathetic garbage team below the Pirates or Royals in terms of significance.

Schwindt10 on
July 20th, 2010 1:30 am

I agree with the notion that Z should do everything in his power to move Wilson, then we can move Figgy over to SS, & get ourselves a 3B in FA (Inge, Cantu, Feliz, Wigginton).

JMHawkins on
July 20th, 2010 9:19 am

OK, so all the stuff Dave/Lookout Landing/etc. that everyone wrote was 100% wrong (and not in hindsight- if this team was hosed, it should have been obvious back then), and there was no way this team was capable of contending in 2010 or in the near future

What I recall from the prognosis was that the team had a bunch of gambles that, if they paid off, would make them a contender. And if they didn’t, we’d have a 70 win club.

Well, the gambles (Kotchman, Bradley, Bedard, Wilson, Griffey) all failed pretty badly, and a couple of “sure things” (Figgins, League) collapsed on top of that.

I don’t give Zduriencik a pass, no siree. I’ve mentioned my complaints. He made some bad moves. I also recognize that the hand he had to play required taking big risks to compete. When he took over, the team was at the bottom of the league talent-wise with it’s starting C, SS and CF. The three most important positions, and they had nothing on the ML roster or (really) in AAA. Clement, Johnson and Moore were there at C, but Clement couldn’t stick, Johnson is replacement level, and Moore isn’t ready.

He’s got the team going in the right direction, but this year he’s proven to be human and fallable.

eponymous coward on
July 20th, 2010 10:09 am

He’s got the team going in the right direction, but this year he’s proven to be human and fallable.

I can go with that. If you’re not failing every now and then, you probably aren’t trying hard enough. The key is what you learn from the failures.

All this “trade Ichiro” talk is pretty damn irritating.

Sure, he’s a great player. There’s no serious argument about that. So’s Cliff Lee. Didn’t seem to stop us from trading him.

samregens on
July 20th, 2010 5:27 pm

Sure, he’s a great player. There’s no serious argument about that. So’s Cliff Lee. Didn’t seem to stop us from trading him.

While Cliff Lee was here I really felt that he and Ichiro were clearly a cut above the rest in terms of professionalism, preparation, actual performance on the field, etc.

However, I find it interesting that in terms of trading people away, you think that a player who was here for half a year is equal to a player who can be said to be the face of the Mariners for close to 10 years now and counting.

And who has been maybe the only big superstar showing loyalty to the Mariners and the fans in Seattle, choosing to sign with us in free agency and remain with us when he could have gone anywhere else and been very welcome.

regnaD kciN on
July 20th, 2010 6:00 pm

And really, the Mariners would be unwatchable without Ichiro.

Uh…right now, the Mariners are unwatchable with Ichiro.

sbrune40 on
July 20th, 2010 10:56 pm

what if the m’s find a taker for saunders and get a decent return and go hard after crawford in free agency?? too much wishful thinking huh?